Arts & Books Mixed Bag 5 Trivia Quiz

Answer: Tom Clancy

President John Patrick Ryan, born in 1950, first appeared in Tom Clancy's 1984 novel 'The Hunt for Red October'. In all, he has appeared in around a dozen Clancy novels, sometimes as the main character (eg. 'Patriot Games' and 'Clear and Present Danger') and sometimes in a cameo role (eg. 'Without Remorse'). Clancy's 2003 novel, 'Teeth of the Tiger', starred Ryan's son, Jack jr.

Answer: Argus

In the films, Filch is played by English character actor David Bradley, a classic Shakespearean actor for much of his career.
Filch is one of the only non-magicians at Hogwarts, and Harry catches him taking a 'teach-yourself course' at one point. His cat, Mrs. Norris, acts as his spy around the school as he tries to catch students wandering around out of hours. Appropriately, he is named after a 100-eyed Greek mythological creature, the Argus.

Answer: Aristophanes

Aristophanes was a Greek comic dramatist born somewhere around 456 B.C. He is sometimes referred to as 'The Father of Comedy'. Around a dozen of his plays have survived intact, although there are known to have been at least four times that number originally.
Of the alternatives, Plato was a contemporary of Aristophanes, although none of his plays have survived. Sophocles and Euripides were two of the three great Greek tragedians (Aeschylus being the third). Both were prodigious authors -- Sophocles had more than 120 plays to his name, while Euripides penned close to 100.

Answer: Looking for Mr Goodbar

Theresa Dunn is a New York schoolteacher. She is also a nymphomaniac and she regularly visits bars late at night in search of the ideal man -- Mr Goodbar. Each night, she takes home a man, has sex with him and then tells him to leave. One night, one of them attacks and kills her. (In the film version he gets jealous and threatens her.) For a change, Richard Gere plays the bad guy. The alternatives are three more 1977 films: 'The Island of Dr Moreau' is based on an H.G. Wells novel and starred Burt Lancaster; 'The Goodbye Girl' (my all-time favorite movie) was written by Neil Simon and starred Richard Dreyfus and Marsha Mason; and 'A Bridge Too Far' was based on Cornelius Ryan's book (and adapted by William Goldman) and featured an all-star cast including Dirk Bogarde, James Caan, Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Robert Redford, Anthony Hopkins and Sean Connery.

Answer: Mr McGregor

Peter and his sisters, Flopsy, Mopsy and Cottontail made their debut in the 1902 book 'The Tale of Peter Rabbit'. In later episodes, we meet Peter's cousin, Benjamin, Mrs Tiggy-Winkle the hedgehog, Mr Tod the fox and Tommy Brock the badger. Always on the periphery of the stories are Mr and Mrs McGregor, whose garden Peter and his Friends regularly plunder.
In the 100 years since they first appeared, the stories have sold more than 150 million copies worldwide.

Answer: Frederic Chopin

A virtuoso pianist, Frederic Chopin is widely acknowledged as Poland's greatest composer. At the age of 20, he moved west, to France, his father's homeland. Never in the best of health, he died in Paris in 1849 at the age of just 39. His grave can be seen today in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, final resting place of many famous people. Chopin's grave is a popular attraction and is constantly covered with fresh flowers. Of the alternatives, Marie Curie, the only person to win Nobel Prizes in two different fields, was born in Warsaw but much later than Chopin, in 1867; Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the 1905 Nobel Prize for Literature was born in 1846 in Wola Okrzejska, a village in eastern Poland; astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was born in Torun, a city of the Vistula River north of Warsaw, and much earlier, in 1473.

Answer: Magrathea

Home of the Magratheans, who had originally created the Earth, the economy of Magrathea is based on the manufacture of planets for 'the alien who has everything'. Famous residents of the planet include Slartibartfast, who won an award for the design of the Norwegian coastline. The alternatives are three other planets from the 'trilogy': Bethselamin is a popular destination for inter-planetary tourists; Damogran is a boring planet containing a particularly uninteresting island named 'France' -- it was from Damogran that the 'Heat of Gold' (the prototype ship containing infinite improbability drive) was stolen; Kria is the home planet of the Azgoths, whose poetry is only exceeded in its awfulness by a human from Essex, so that the Vogons' destruction of Earth moves the Azgoths up into first place in the Universe.

Answer: George

Born George Gordon Byron in 1788 in Hollis Street in London, he was known by various names in his early life... For a while, he went by the name John Byron Gordon, using his father's first name and adopting his mother's maiden name in order to lay claim to her Scottish estate. He went to school in Aberdeen as George Byron Gordon. He inherited his uncle's title at the age of 10, becoming Lord Byron, thus obviating the need for the double surname.

Answer: Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein'

Remarkably, Mary Shelley had completed 'Frankenstein' before her 20th birthday. Alternatively titled 'The Modern Prometheus', it was first published anonymously in 1818 -- her name finally appeared on the third edition in 1831. Many people believe that Frankenstein is the name of the monster, but it is really the name of the scientist who created him -- Victor Frankenstein.

Answer: Francisco Goya

Goya is considered the last of the Spanish 'Old Masters' and the first of the modern era that produced the likes of Miro and Dali. Indeed, Goya himself changed his style dramatically. In his early years, he was official court artist to numerous Spanish monarchs and many of his works from that era are portraits or group pictures of the royal family of the day.

In his later life, though, Goya's style changed... In 1793-94 he painted the series known as 'Fantasy and Invention', and between 1819-23 he produced his most famous works, known as 'The Black Paintings' which include 'Witches Sabbath', 'Fight with Clubs' and the haunting 'Saturn Devouring His Son'. The alternatives are also Spanish painters: Diego Velázquez was born in Seville, but much earlier than Goya, in 1599; Bartolomé Murillo was also from Seville, born in 1612; Joan Miró was from Barcelona and much later than Goya, born in 1893.